Tuesday, October 26, 2010

"Cloverdale" doesn't add to the main story, the Lucian Alliance or Rush's ongoing craziness not mentioned in the episode, but it's actually a welcome change from the crop of Lucian Alliance episodes.

Whether we take Scott's dreams as his own thoughts or whether anything that happened in the episode will carry on, the dreams serve as a metaphor for Scott's character, and did a much better job defining him than in the previous 20+ episodes. The implication is that Scott is insecure about himself, conflicted about Chloe, monogamy, and whether he should move on. In recent episodes, we've seen Scott question his relationship with Chloe in light of her changes. But as his dream shows, he's less concerned about her than himself and his ability to stay with her. The final grace note, Scott and Chloe getting married as Chloe's transfused blood saves Scott, is, in my opinion, an emotional highpoint for the show.

The problem with the dream, however, is that it's slow, and the episode gets bogged down in insignificance. We see how Scott views everyone else, but it isn't new information or particularly relevant information, given what's going on in the real world.

The rest of the episode is pretty awesome with the attacking plants and use of flamethrowers to beat them off. But like with every other alien we've seen on the show, I wish we could learn more about them. And we may have if much of the screen time wasn't dedicated to the dream.